The Halfbreed
by Infinitypoet
Summary: Vampire hybrid Edward Cullen is the biological son of Carlisle and Esme Cullen. Edward, along with his parents and adopted siblings move to the rainy town of Forks, Washington. There Edward will meet Bella Swan, the quirky daughter of the local sheriff. This is the story of how the pair falls in love and how they use that love to forge new relationships in interesting places.
1. Chapter 1

It's Baaack! Here you go my darlings, chapter 1 of The Halfbreed! I planning on updating every few days (at least once a week) until I have everything back up and new stuff ready to post! Thank you all for your patience, support and for all of your love! I hope you all enjoy!

I own nothing but I'd really like to!

*Thanks to those who pointed it out to me. I have fixed the issue with Edward's birth year.

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My name is Edward Cullen, and my story is a complicated one. To understand it, you must first understand the story of my parents, and my family. My father was born in the 1640's in London, England. His father was a pastor who had dedicated his life to hunting down abominations. Devils and demons. _Vampires_.

When my father, Carlisle, was 23 years of age, he began working for his father. He joined him in the hunt for the evil creatures that preyed upon the people of London. He tracked down one such coven and, accompanied by a mob of other people from their congregation, went to destroy the creature.

In the ensuing fight, my father was bitten by the 'monster'. The mob, unaware of what had happened, continued on in their pursuit of the vampire, leaving my father writhing in pain alone. He pulled himself into a cellar and hid beneath a pile of rotting potatoes, where he lay for three days burning in agony from with the pain of the change.

When he awoke, he was one of them. He was a vampire.

But he refused his nature.

He never once fed on human blood to survive, instead discovering that the blood of animals was equally sufficient in keeping him strong and healthy.

He built up his tolerance to being in the presence of humans, and eventually to direct exposure to human blood. He traveled Europe searching for any others like him, who also valued human life and were willing to live his chosen lifestyle, but he found none.

He found educated vampires in Italy, but they scoffed at his choice of diet. He spent several years living with them, trying all the while to convince them to try out his way of life. They, in turn, spent the time trying to convince him to try theirs.

Eventually, he gave up and left Italy. He spent years learning medical science, and eventually traveled to the New World in hopes that he could start a new life, and maybe even find others like himself there.

He became a doctor for humans. He lived among them, ignoring his temptation for their blood, and instead using his supernatural skills to help and heal them.

In 1914, Carlisle was working as a doctor in Columbus, Ohio, when he met my mother. She was only 16 years old when they met. She had broken her leg climbing a tree and he tended to her throughout her recovery. My mother, Esme, says she was completely smitten with him from the moment they met, but she was shy and he was older, not to mention a well respected doctor. She never imagined that a man like him could ever hold any interest in her.

But he did.

From the very beginning, he was besotted with her. Her laugh, her smile. They could carry on lengthy discussions while he tended to her leg, and he would come up with excuses to come and visit more often than was medically necessary. He says she was like a breath of fresh air.

He had never allowed himself to consider a relationship with a human woman before, but found himself falling in love with my mother anyway.

Originally he was only going to be staying in Columbus for a short visit, before moving on to a hospital in Illinois, but he canceled his plans, and instead stayed in Ohio as a small-town doctor.

Even long after mother's leg was healed, he would still find reasons to visit. On overcast days they would meet at the park and chat. They would take strolls through the town and by the lake.

Mother says he didn't treat her like the other men did. He spoke to her like she had a mind, and was intelligent, and that thrilled her.

She says it didn't take long for her to become aware that he wasn't... _normal_. But she didn't bring it up. She hoped that one day, he would trust her enough to tell her.

The day after her 18th birthday, he officially declared his intentions to court her. Her family was thrilled. Her two younger sisters were already married off, and the whole family had been concerned with her lack of male suitors. What was even better, Carlisle was a doctor, and a highly respected one at that.

But my father was terrified of what he was doing. It had taken a year and a half for him to get up the courage to even consider doing this, and he still had no idea where it would lead.

She was human. He was a vampire, and he still hadn't even been honest with her about his true nature. And what then? Would she reject him? Fear him? Run screaming for the hills? Be filled with anger at him for wasting her time that she could have been investing in a more suitable man? He was filled with fears and self-doubt, but one thing he never doubted was that he loved her.

So finally the day came that he told her. He revealed his history to her. He told her of what he was, and showed her what he was capable of.

She simply smiled. She may not have known he was a _vampire_, but she had long ago realized he wasn't human. He was so cold. He never ate. His eyes changed color, his hair didn't grow, and he never came out when it was sunny. She had come to terms, long before that day, that whatever he was, it didn't matter to her because she would love him no matter what.

My father's greatest sadness lay in the revelation to Esme that he could never provide her with children. He was sure that would be the ultimate deal breaker for her. He knew how badly she wanted to be a mother. To his shock, she insisted that it didn't matter, as long as she got him. He was what was most important to her.

And so they became engaged, and shortly after she turned 19, they married.

They had been discussing the prospect of changing my mother into a vampire for some time by that point, but my father wanted to wait until she had aged a bit more. He was permanently stuck at 23, and they both agreed that the closer they appeared in age, the less complicated things would likely be. Just the same, my father was very hesitant to change her at all. However, he accepted that it would be necessary if the two of them were to be together, and my mother was stubborn and refused to have it any other way.

In the end, the decision was made for them when the most unexpected and unbelievable thing happened, shortly after my mother's 20th birthday.

She became pregnant.

Up until that moment, my father had believed it absolutely impossible for him to ever produce offspring. _Vampires couldn't get pregnant. _That was a fact, and he knew it, but he was suddenly faced with the new fact that a male vampire, could in-fact, impregnate a human woman.

They were both elated and absolutely terrified. This was completely undiscovered territory and my father had absolutely no idea what to expect. He had never heard of anything of this sort happening before, and he feared what sort of creature the child might be. As the pregnancy progressed, it became blatantly obvious that it would _not_ be a normal pregnancy. Everything was happening too quickly, and my mother was very sick, and had trouble keeping anything down.

My mother absolutely insisted upon keeping me and going through with the pregnancy. She refused any alternatives, no matter how afraid my father was of losing her, and no matter how afraid he was of what the baby inside might be.

The pregnancy only lasted about three months, rather than the normal 9 month gestation of a human. The strain on my mother's body was intense and apparently my kicking even resulted in the breaking a few of her ribs. She was, after all, only human and I... _was not._

There's no denying that the birth would have killed her, had my father not intervened and bit her the moment he had me out of her. He injected her with his venom and began the change.

He says it was the most frightening day of his existence, and yet, also the beginning of the best time of his life.

My mother survived the ordeal, and awoke three days later, a vampire, to discover her newborn infant child already appeared every bit a month old.

My father had looked after me and my mother, all on his own those three days. He watched his wife writhe in pain as the transformation changed her, and watched his infant baby age at such an accelerated rate that he feared what it would mean for me in the long run.

I aged _very_ quickly.

During those early years we lived in near isolation. My mother was a newborn vampire, and had to fight her new instincts to feed on human blood, so we kept away from people for her sake. We also stayed away simply because my accelerated growth rate would be obvious to anyone who saw me.

If a person saw me one day, and then came back a week later, I would appear at least a month older.

My aging wasn't the only obvious anomaly though. Once I was born, my father quickly realized that I had a heart beat and flowing, pulsing, blood. My mother was undergoing the transformation to become a vampire at this point, and he feared that when she woke to her new life as a newborn, she would have trouble being near me; that my blood would be a temptation to her.

Fortunately, that didn't end up being a problem. While I have blood, it's not the same as human blood, and the smell of it isn't a temptation to immortals. I was an obvious anomaly. I wasn't human, that much was clear, but I wasn't quite a vampire either. My skin wasn't ice cold, like theirs. In fact, I was quite hot. Hotter than even a normal human should be. My heart rate was also accelerated, and strangely steady.

However, my skin was almost as pale as any vampire's, and just as impenetrable and indestructible. I possessed the same ethereal, unnatural beauty that vampires are graced with, and my parents said that it resulted in me being the most amazingly beautiful baby and child, one could ever imagine. Of course they are my patents, and as such, could also be deemed, _biased_.

My eyes seemed to baffle and awe my father as well. They are a bright emerald green; the same shade my mother had apparently had when she was still human. Being vampires that feed on animals, I have always known my parents eyes to be an amber or topaz color. When they haven't hunted in a few weeks, they darken to black, but lighten again, once they've fed. My eyes remain static. Always green.

My mother's hair is a beautiful caramel color, but apparently her father had the exact same reddish-brown bronze hair that I have been graced with. As I grew and aged, it became ever obvious how much of my father's facial features I inherited.

From the very start, all of my parent's worries, mental observations, and joys were mine to hear. You see, I awoke to this world with one extra skill that even normal vampires do not possess. I can hear thoughts, but it went a step further than that. I quickly learned that I could also project my own thoughts right back onto their minds. This basically gave me the ability to have silent conversations with a person.

Even when in my mother's womb, I heard her thoughts. Those memories are my least clear, yet I still recall them. That's another vampire trait I inherited. I have an almost perfect memory. I remember the day I was born. I remember the sight of my mother covered in blood as my father laid me in a small sunken table as he rushed to her and began biting her wrists and her neck, injecting his venom into her bloodstream. I remember the moment he finally let himself believe the transformation was started and he turned back to really look at me for the first time.

He had a scientific mind and his first instinct was to analyze me. He was curious and amazed, but as he looked at me, he was suddenly in awe, and I felt loved.

I remember the day my mother first awoke and how anxious and afraid my father was that her newborn thirst would crave for my blood. However, when she looked at me from across the room where my father hesitantly restrained her, her thoughts were consumed with nothing but adoration.

I first experimented with projecting my thoughts to them when I was about two months old. This was when they first became aware of my gift. I didn't bother to speak aloud to either of them for nearly a year. Even then, I only did it because my mother worried so as to whether I was even capable of it.

What was odd to me about my ability was that no one else heard these voices I heard, that I wasn't _supposed_ to hear these things, and many people highly valued the privacy of their mind.

My father was always wary that I might be put off by his tendency to analyze me, but I never really felt like the lab rat he feared he'd make me feel like with his constant analytical thoughts. I knew it was only his nature. He was a curious man and intellectual man. It was his nature to be investigative.

My parents were especially worried that I would pick up on their fears about my unusually fast aging. I did, of course. They were both terrible at concealing their thoughts from me in the beginning. I was their son. They loved me, and my accelerated aging scared them. They couldn't help but worry about it.

For every year, I appeared to age about two and a half. My parents feared that this trend would continue my entire life and I would die of old age by the time I was 30. Those fears were squelched when, several years later, my aging began to gradually slow.

I was 7 years old when the aging finally stopped. By that time, I appeared every bit 17 or 18 years old, and have remained the same ever since. Frozen in time like my immortal parents.

It was around this time that we first ventured back toward civilization. My mother's newborn days were done and her self-control around humans was steadily growing. I fortunately never had a problem controlling my thirst for blood. Human blood _did _taste the best, even to me. I knew this because my father had acquired some donor blood during my infant months since it seemed to aid in my growth best. However, my family's diet of animal blood sufficed.

I was capable of eating and digesting human food, which is something a true vampire isn't capable of doing. Despite the fact that I _could _eat human food, I found it more often than not, it tasted revolting and refused it for most all of my childhood - no matter how much my father tried to convince me otherwise.

Once I was old enough to look the part, I often joined my father in his medical practices as his assistant. As a result of this, I got in the habit of referring to both of my parents by their names when in public, since we all appeared far too close in age for anyone to believe they were my parents.

The story we went with was that I was Carlisle's younger brother. The resemblance was undeniable, so the story worked well. The most difficult thing I faced in integrating into populated human areas, and working alongside my father as a doctor, was not self control or bloodlust, but rather learning to cope with the mental onslaught of hearing the thoughts of so many people at once.

The mental noise was deafening when in an especially crowded place, and it was a real challenge in the beginning to keep myself from responding to peoples thoughts on accident. At home, it had become common practice for my parents to speak to me through their thoughts.

In 1933, we were living in Rochester, New York. I was technically 15 years old at this point but had looked, acted and felt every bit a young adult for the last few years. It was at this point in my life that women began to take note of me. One vampire trait I had undeniably inherited was natural beauty, and the girls and women around me were very... _taken _with me.

I suppose some people would be flattered by the attention. Some might get some sort of ego boost from hearing the thoughts of women, _and some men_, lusting after them constantly.

I am not one of those people.

Those thoughts did nothing but disturb me. I had no desire to see the obscene fantasies of others, and absolutely _hated_ seeing them with me in it, but there was nothing I could do. I had no ability to shut the voices and images out. They were always there and there was nothing I could do about it.

As such, I showed no interest in the opposite sex. Every time I actually found a girl I did find somewhat physically appealing, she would either disgust me with her thoughts, or quickly prove herself to be dull, stupid, or shallow.

Admittedly, I was still very young at this point, and the worries my patents harbored about how I might ever be able to find a woman to love, were still only barely in the back of their minds. Just the same, when my father came across the bloody, beaten, and near death body of one, Rosalie Hale - one of the most attractive young women in all of Rochester - he still couldn't help but think that if he 'saved' Rosalie from death's door and made her a vampire, that perhaps I could find love with her.

I couldn't blame him for his wishful thinking. He only wished for my happiness, but if there was a single word to encompass everything that I found unattractive in women, that one word would be Rosalie.

Sure, she was beautiful - even more so once she became a vampire - but it wasn't her outward appearance that _mattered _to me.

To my parents she seemed fine. A little vain. She was obviously upset and filled with anger over her death and the subsequent hand she was dealt, but they figured she could grow to accept her life, so long as she had someone to love and to share her new life with. The problem was _they _didn't have to hear her thoughts.

So Rosalie simply became my sister and nothing more.

Rosalie's death was brought on by the rape and attack from her drunken fiancé and his equally drunken friends. As such, she was understandably angry with the world, and especially with any member of the male persuasion.

What truly angered Rose about her new hand in life was the loss of any chance that she could ever have children.

Rosalie was a beautiful, pampered, spoiled little rich girl who always got everything she ever wanted - but the one thing that really mattered, she could now never have. It had been her dream for as long as she could remember to have a baby. A beautiful little bundle of joy to have and hold and watch grow up. It was all she ever wanted, and she hated everyone involved with her loss of that dream.

She hated her fiancé and his friends, and once she was strong enough in her self control to go out in the company of humans without exposing herself, she went out and got her revenge against each and every one of the men involved.

Rosalie was also angry with us. She eventually got over her hatred of Father. She realized he was sincere in his desire and attempt to save her, but hated the knowledge that he had an ulterior motive, namely _me,_ in his decision to change her.

She hated me because I had rejected her. It stung that I had absolutely no desire to be with her, and it was a blow to her confidence. What made it all that much worse for her was knowing that I could read every thought out of her head, so she couldn't even hide the hurt from me. She was proud, and refused to show any weakness. The fact that I could see it anyway only served to piss her off more.

In the early years, Mother was the only one that Rose was at all kind too. It was difficult to be any other way when my mother was involved. She was truly the kindest and most compassionate woman I've ever encountered, and even Rose couldn't deny that.

Although, under the surface, Rosalie was seething with jealousy against my mother. They were both damned to be vampires, but my mother had gotten to have a child first. On top of that, her child was immortal so she got to keep me by her side, forever.

We were all worried that Rose would suffer eternally, forever bitter and angry, but all that changed when, one day she came home from a hunt with a broken and bloody human man in her arms.

At first we all worried that she had perhaps lost control and attacked him, but that turned out not to be the case. Rosalie had found him in the woods being mauled by a grizzly bear. She killed the bear and scooped up his barely still alive form and ran the 50-plus miles it took to bring him to the house, in hopes that Father could save him. That Father would _change _him.

It never really made sense to me, but Rosalie insisted that in the moment she saw him laying there on the brink of death, she knew he was _the one_.

Father didn't want to change anyone else. He still felt horrible for what he had put Rosalie through, but she used that guilt against him; insisting that he _owed_ her.

And so he did it. And Emmett joined the family.

As far as Emmett was concerned, Rosalie was his angel. He loved her from day one and we all accepted that the trouble Emmett brought with him was worth it to see Rose begin to heal.

Emmett had the most trouble of any of us with his thirst during his newborn years and we had to relocate several times after he had _accidents. _

But they were happy together, and that was what really mattered.

As the family grew I began to feel more and more the anomaly. There were now four vampires in our family... and me. I wanted to know if there were any others out there like myself. Other _hybrids_.

Finally, the day came that the family was to move again and I told my parents I wouldn't be joining them. My mother was shocked and distraught, but my father wasn't at all surprised. He'd seen it coming.

I told them that I wanted to travel and search for others like myself. I promised to come back to them someday; hopefully sooner than later, but I had no estimate to give them. I had no idea how long it would take me to find any others like myself... If I could find any at all.

It was three years into my travels when I got my first real lead. It sent me traveling to South America, where I searched for an additional year before I finally found Nahuel.

The day I met him was truly a shock for me. I was actually in the middle of hunting. I didn't even suspect I was remotely near my goal. I was following some lead that was taking me further east and didn't anticipate meeting up with my contact for another day or two.

I had just taken down some large breed of jungle cat when I heard his thoughts. He caught my scent along one of his usual hunting trails and noticed the vampire in it. He also noted the human and had a fleeting concern that his father had 'made another'.

He thought about how the scent was not one he recognized, so I _'couldn't be one of his sisters.'_

His thoughts confused me, but I recognized that he found my half-breed scent familiar and was suddenly more excited than I had been in years.

I began heading towards where I sensed his thoughts and we practically collided.

Nahuel possessed the standard inhuman beauty that came with our partial vampire heritage. He had a very rich dark skin tone, long jet-black hair tied in a braid, and black eyes. When he saw me he was instantly shocked by my pale white complexion. He mentally exclaimed that there was no way I was '_Joham's offspring'._

His line of thought continued to bewilder me, but I was far more overwhelmed by the excitement filling me. _He was like me! _I could tell immediately. I could sense his skin temperature from where I stood. I could hear his accelerated heart rate. And most of all, I could tell from his scent. The vampire was there. The extremely sweet scent that came from the venom, but mixed in with the metallic smell of humanoid blood.

We talked for hours just sitting there in the Chilean jungle. Finally, we went back to the house he shared with his biological aunt, who he himself had inadvertently turned to a vampire variant, when he bit her just after his own birth.

There, he told me about his family. His mother, who he only fleetingly remembered from the day of his birth, and his aunt who had been there by her sister's side during the horrific, gory birth.

Nahuel had no love for his vampire father. The man apparently thought himself a scientist of sorts, and had some sort of dream about creating a super race of vampire hybrids. He held no affections to the women he impregnated, and did not stay with them through their pregnancy, thus condemning them to death upon the child's birth.

Nahuel told me he had several half-sisters, all with different mothers, who had all also died in childbirth. He was amazed to hear about my parents and conception. Nahuel despised his father, and his motives for the creation of Nahuel and his sisters, so he loved to hear the story of my parents falling in love, and was in awe that my mother was saved from death by my father.

We shared any information we each knew about what we were, and I ended up staying with Nahuel and his aunt for several months before I finally left to return to my family with my new knowledge.

I stayed in contact with Nahuel, and visited him from time to time over the years.

It was now 1950 and I was 35 years old, but of course, still looking every bit 17. We had been living in New Hampshire for a little over a year when our family make-up got once again turned upside down.

We were all home that day, Emmett, father and I had just gotten back from an extended hunt a few hours earlier and Emmett had missed his wife. As such, once he was cleaned up, the two of them started to head towards their bedroom, and I quickly started to head out the front door.

Just then, I heard a pair of unfamiliar mental voices drawing near. We rarely ever had visitors. We lived a fair distance from town to assure our privacy, so I was immediately on guard. I warned the others in a regular speaking voice, knowing everyone in the house would be able to hear it anyway.

Emmett mentally whined that he and Rose's escapades were interrupted, but drew himself away from her anyway.

I focused in on the voices, trying to anticipate who was coming, and for what reasons, but the thoughts only served to confuse me further.

_I finally get to figure out why I get so many blank and blurry spots when I look forward. I'm sure there are five of them, but I've never been able to see the fifth! So frustrating for so long. Finally my puzzle will be solved!_

_Jesus I sure hope Alice is right. If they're hostile I don't know if I can deal with all five of them. I swear I'll die if anything happens to her. I'll just die... Five vampires. FIVE! Who's even heard of a coven that large outside of newborn army clans and the Volturi? _

I was instantly on edge. _They knew what we were. _And judging from their thoughts, they were vampire themselves.

I quickly told the others and we gathered outside the house, cautiously awaiting our guests' arrival.

They came into view and I couldn't help but cock a curious eyebrow at the pair. The girl was _very_ short. She couldn't be more than four and a half feet. The man next to her was probably an inch or two taller than I am, and the contrast between the two was almost comical.

The short pixie girl had ink black hair that was cut _very_ short and styled into spikes. It was an incredibly odd haircut for the times. She had enormous bright smiling eyes and they were... _topaz. _

I quickly looked at the male to confirm his were the same. Father made the same observation and gasped, startled and excited. We still had yet to ever encounter a single vampire outside of our family who had embraced the same unique diet that led to my family's golden hued eyes. Seeing these mystery vampires show up out of the blue, with such eyes, was quite a shock.

I examined the male and found yet another observation to gasp over. He was _covered_ in scars. Crescent shaped bite marks dotted every exposed inch if his skin and the sight made my skin crawl. I could only imagine the pain that had come with those scars.

Their thoughts continued to bombard me and I listened intently.

_Holy shit, look at the big one. This has such a huge potential for disaster. He's got to be insanely strong with a build like that. My only hope is that he has poor combat skills. Alice says it'll be okay. She says it'll be okay. You can trust Alice. Trust Alice. Just the same... Plan for escape. _

His mind went on to analyzing our surroundings, planning various escape strategies.

_Wait... Oh my! What __**is **__he? I suspected that maybe he was a vampire with some special skill that blocked him from my visions, but he's not even a vampire! He's something entirely different! I was hoping for an immediate answer to my puzzle, but this only brings about more questions than I had before! _

_What the hell... Do they have a human here? Alice said they all feed on animals... All their eyes are golden. From her stories I'd never take them as the type to keep a pet... But... Heartbeat. Blood. Definitely seems human. But wait... he doesn't smell right...and he almost looks like a vampire. What the hell is he?_

I mentally sighed at their questions and analysis. I'd come across a fair number of vampires over the years thanks to my travels and my searching for other half-breeds, and their thoughts were always the same.

At least I never smelled appetizing to any of them. There had actually been one that had gone after me anyway, thinking I was human and not even caring if I didn't smell like food.

Of course my speed and strength, not to mention the ability to counter attacks based on a person's thoughts, provided me with more than enough defense.

_Hmmm... _The female's mental voice continued, _well it's certainly interesting, but doesn't change anything. Plenty of time to get to know him. _

All of this had transpired in the few seconds since they emerged from the tree line at the edge of the clearing that surrounded our house. The girl suddenly had a huge grin on her face and quickly darted closer to the group of us. The male's thoughts were frantic with concern and planning contingency escape routes, should we react badly.

"Carlisle! Esme! I'm so excited to finally get to meet you! I've been looking forward to this day for _so_ long!" She squealed, beaming at them. We all looked at her surprised, and then Rose, Emmett and I all turned to my parents, expectantly, but I could tell from their thoughts that they had no idea who either of these vampires were.

"And Emmett and Rosalie! I'm so excited to finally get to know you both." She continued without missing a beat. Then she turned to face me, a curious grin on her face.

"And _you!" _She said in a playfully accusatory tone as she narrowed her eyes and pointed her finger at me. "_You_ have given me such a hard time! I'm sure I would have found the lot of you _ages_ ago if it weren't for you!"

"Excuse me?" I asked, taken aback. "And just _who_ are you?"

She grinned taking a step back and smiling.

"I'm Alice. This is Jasper. And I've been looking for you all for a _long _time."

Alice revealed to us that she had a very powerful gift. She was precognizant. _Psychic. _She would have visions of events that had yet to pass, and it was that talent, that led her to us. She had been having premonitions of both Jasper and my family, almost since the day she woke up to this life as a vampire, which had been about thirty years now. She had only just found Jasper three years earlier.

It was staggering to think that this crazed pixie had spent the last thirty years waiting to find us.

I asked her why she didn't find any of us sooner. She glared at me and said that I made her visions fuzzy, but I insisted that didn't explain why she took so long finding Jasper. Her response was to say that he had to find her.

I would eventually learn to expect cryptic responses from Alice in regards to her more "significant" visions.

We quickly determined that Alice's visions appeared to have a blind spot when it came to _me_. We weren't entirely sure if it was something to do with me as an individual, or if it was my species, until several years later when I invited Nahuel to come pay me a visit and stay for a few weeks.

It became instantly obvious that Alice's visions were blinded by him as well.

Alice wasn't the only one with a special skill out of our two newest family members. Jasper quickly informed us that he too had a unique talent. Jasper was an empath. He sensed the emotions of those around him as if they were his own. In addition to that, he could also manipulate the emotions of those around him.

Jasper and Alice each had their own stories. Alice had no memories from her human life. She woke up from her three day transformation alone and confused. Whoever sired her, abandoned her. But her visions guided her. Thanks to her premonitions of my family she knew that she could feed off animals, and that she could exist without being a monster that preys on humans.

Jasper was hesitant to share his story with us at first, and it was obvious it was a sensitive subject for him. It wasn't hard for us to guess that, whatever it was was probably related to his numerous battle scars.

Jasper had a fairly thick southern accent and he did tell us he had been born and raised in Texas and had spent most of his vampire existence in that general vicinity. I hadn't immediately seen any significance in these details but I saw Father's mind connect the dots for me.

Vampires in the south, during the last few centuries had a hard life and it's actually rare to find anyone alive who lived through that time. There were territory wars between large vampire clans made up mostly of newborns who were destroyed by their makers once their newborn strength ran out, along with their usefulness as soldiers.

Father silently suspected that Jasper had been one of the few survivors of that time.

It took several years of living with us for Jasper to finally begin to relax and feel accepted as a member of our family. As I lived in the same house with him, and had no ability to turn off my _talent_, I couldn't help but pick up bits and pieces of Jaspers history from brief memories and the rare occasions when he allowed himself to think of those times. It wasn't until a hunting trip in the snow-covered Cascade Mountains in the winter of 1956 that Jasper actually opened up to us all.

It was much as Father had suspected. Jasper had been involved in the southern vampire wars. He had been responsible for the creation, training, and eventual destruction of the newborn fighters for his coven. His empathic skills made this a terribly difficult life for him. Newborns are so aggressive and angry, and he had to soak all of that up, constantly. Add to that, his eventual task of destroying them, and feeling the fear and anger from them... Jasper had been terribly miserable, but at the time had been lead to believe that there was no other life he could live.

It was decades later that he finally left her to travel with a mated pair of vampires that he helped escape from Maria's troupe when the female of the pair was scheduled for 'culling'.

Even with his two friends he felt discontent, so he left to go on his own searching... For what he didn't know. It was shortly after that that he found Alice.

I liked both of them greatly. Alice and I quickly became good friends. Her strangely infectious and giddy disposition made her impossible to hate.

Jasper was smart, and once you got past his quiet and introverted outward disposition, he had a wicked quick wit.

I noticed it long before the others. In the early years, he remained quiet around everyone most of the time, but I heard his silent thoughts, remarks and responses that he kept to himself. I often found myself snickering and holding back chuckles to something he thought in response to something Emmett, Rose, and even sometimes Alice, would say or do.

He'd smirk back at me, acknowledging our shared, silent joke. It didn't take too long for him to gain the confidence around the others to finally start opening up and saying some of his wisecracks out loud. Emmett appreciated him even more then. Em was like a big kid at heart and there were few things he valued over a good sense of humor.

Alice and I just sort of clicked, right from the start.

I had considered Nahuel to be my only real friend, outside of the family, but Alice became my best friend. In the beginning, Alice found my effect on her visions annoying, but she would later confide in me that she found my presence both calming and exciting.

Calming because she found she could just shut the visions off when with me and imagine what it must be like to be 'normal', and exciting, because when she was in my company, her own immediate future became as blank as mine. She had no idea what was to come and for Alice, that was scary and exciting. It was like a thrill ride for her.

When she first told me that I laughed and told her she was crazy. She only laughed in return.

Time passed. I thought I was happy for a while. I loved my family. Every one of them. Even Rose, no matter how much of a brat she was. But I always felt... lonely.

I had already begun feeling it before Alice and Jasper arrived. My parents were blissfully in love and Emmett and Rosalie were devoted to each other. I had longed for a connection like that with someone.

Alice and Jasper provided a distraction for a short time. Their friendship gave me something positive to focus on, rather than my own bachelorhood, but they were just as in love with each other as the other couples in my family, and eventually I began feeling that ache again.

I parted ways with my family a few more times for brief intervals over the years. During one of these trips I went to visit Nahuel again, planning to meet his sisters this time. It had been my hope that I might form a connection with one of them. There were so very few of our kind, it almost seemed like my only hope.

While I did find them pleasant enough, there was nothing there for me. I had no real connection with any of them. There was no... _spark_.

I searched for any others of our kind, but came up empty. I returned to my family in the early 1970's while they were living in the shadow of Mt McKinley, in Alaska's Denali National Forest. I arrived to discover that my family had befriended another small coven of golden-eyed vampires.

Three sisters: Irina, Kate, and Tanya.

They were all far older even than my father, over a thousand years old each, in fact. They had come to a conscious on their own after many, _many_ years of seducing human males into their beds and then feeding upon once they were finished with them.

They were likely the origin of the succubus legends of old, but had apparently grown to care for their bedmates and eventually stopped killing them when the sex was over, opting instead to invite them back for repeat visits.

In recent years, they had come to discover the alternative animal diet. Obviously, Mother and Father were thrilled to find them and their family became quite close with ours.

They were eventually joined by two additional vampires, a mated couple who joined them because they were also interested in the diet.

Father actually knew one of the two from his time, centuries ago when he lived in Italy. The vampire in question, Eleazar, had been a member of the guard to the educated vampires he stayed with.

Eleazar had found his mate, Carmen, a few decades ago and left Italy at that time searching for a new life for themselves, and eventually desiring a life that didn't involve the killing of humans for food.

Father was joyful at the idea that other vampires were finally beginning to accept compassion for humans into their hearts.

While we lived in Alaska, I became friends with the three sisters, as well as Eleazar and Carmen. As more time passed, one of the sisters, Tanya, began to show an interest in me. Her thoughts put me off and I very politely told her so, many times.

She seemed enticed by the fact that I was warm and soft, like the human men she enjoyed to bed, but excited by the fact that I was strong and _durable_ as a vampire.

She hinted on numerous occasions that she was interested. Emmett and Jasper insisted that I needed to put honest consideration into her offer, but I knew it wasn't right.

Tanya wasn't interested in love. She wanted sex, and that was not what I was looking for, and it only served to further the lonely pit in my stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

*Thanks to those who pointed out the issue of Edward's birth year in chapter 1 to me. The issue has now been fixed!

I own nothing as always.

We had been living in Alaska for several years, and were finally moving back to civilization. Alaska had been our break from the charade. When there, we rarely interacted with humans; sticking to ourselves and the Denali coven, instead. However, my father missed working as a doctor and wanted to continue it again.

We had a variety of different covers and scenarios that we used as excuses when living among humans. In this instance, we had decided to all attend university in Hanover, but the summers there were too sunny. We needed a summer home to go to, and it was Emmett who suggested the family get a house in western Washington.

My parents, Emmett, and Rosalie had lived in this one region for a few years in the late 40's, and he remembered it rather fondly. I hadn't been with the family at the time, having been on one of my searches for others of my kind, at the time, but as they described the place, I was enthusiastic about it.

To make our living there in the summers more acceptable to the locals, it was suggested that we start as high school-aged students there first, and then come back each summer until we were done with university.

Initially it was suggested that we start living there as high school _sophomores_, but Rose and I both put our feet down. If we agreed on few things in life, we did at least have a mutual hatred for high school, so we decided on starting as seniors instead. One year of high school I could stomach.

We would live in the small rainy town for one short year; graduate and perhaps we would all take a year off school to soak up our new freedom. All the while, my father gets to work at their local hospital and my mother stays home playing housewife.

So here we were, in Forks, Washington, named after the forks in the nearby Quillayute, Bogachiel, Calawah, and Sol Duc rivers. The region had the country's highest percentage of overcast days per year.

I had no need to personally worry about the sunlight issue, as _I_ didn't _sparkle_ in the sunlight, like they all did, but as long as I lived with my family, it was still my concern as well. After our two full-time years here we would all go off to college, but come back each summer for the subsequent four years of college. It was a good plan. One I could live with.

All I had to do was suffer one year of high school. One year. Just one year. That's not so bad. _Yeah... Just keep telling yourself that. _

First days were always the hardest. I had to keep mental tabs on the thoughts of the students around us to make sure there weren't any particularly perceptive and suspicious individuals. Of course everyone was thinking about us, no matter that it was the first day of school for _everyone. _The thing was that this was a small town, and just about every one of these kids grew up together. They'd all known each other since kindergarten, so there was no blending into the background for us. We stuck out like a sore thumb.

It'd be so much easier for us to pull off our odd charade if we were attending some enormous high school with 3,000 students in it, but we always stuck to smaller towns. The family had all sorts of excuses that they put out for why we did this, but the honest truth was that we did it for my benefit.

The larger the school, the larger the city, the more people there were; and the more people there were, the more thoughts I had to endure. The school we were starting today had just a little over 300 students in it, and at this moment, I could hear the thoughts of every single one of them, bombarding my frontal lobe.

It was quite literally, mind-numbing.

After the first few days passed, I'd focus on ignoring it as much as possible. Letting the noise dissolve into a din in the back of my mind. But today I had to pay attention.

I hated paying attention.

There really is no way to adequately explain how ridiculous the thoughts of teenagers are. For starters, they're almost all incredibly insecure, but they also tend to imagine themselves as the center of the universe, so absolutely everything is about _them._ It could be considered a form of paranoia. Every little thing can be misread into something much bigger and much more stupid. This is mostly true with the girls. The boys aren't quite so prone to this, but they still are to some extent.

Then there are the gossip mongers. The ones that make it their priority to learn as much as they can about as many absolutely pointless things as they can manage, just so that they have something to talk about, and out-do, the other gossip queens they hang out with.

This is almost always an attempt to convince themselves that they're better than whoever it is that they're gossiping about.

I knew how the gossip this week would go. It was always the same, _especially_ when we were in a town and school as small as this one.

My siblings put absolutely no effort into hiding their relationships with each other. It's entirely understandable that they wouldn't. They're _vampires_. Vampires are very territorial about their mates. They're also really attractive to the humans, so of course they all get hit on by every gutsy teenager in the school. It's their natural instinct to confront any threat on their claim, no matter how much of a non-threat it really is.

Emmett can't help scaring the bejesus out of every horn-ball who tries to come on to Rosalie. It's instinctive for him, and fighting that instinct is very hard.

As such, I knew it would take no time at all for everyone in the school to be whispering and wondering about how my _siblings_ were all dating each other. It would be scandalous in even a larger city; but at least in a larger school there would be a period of time before people were fully aware that we all lived together, and were supposed to be siblings.

The fact that our cover story says that we're adopted would likely do little to subdue the gossip. There was no blood relations between us, so it's not like it's incest, but the fact that we have some sort of legal relation would be more than enough to entice their endless chatter.

I was driving all my siblings in my car, a silver S60R Volvo, because out of all of our cars, it's the least conspicuous. As I got within a mile of the school the mental onslaught began to grow. It was still early, so the whole student body wasn't even here yet. We'd been in the near-isolation of Alaska too long. My tolerance to large crowds was low. I took a deep breath, trying to steel myself against the migraine I knew I'd be experiencing for the next few _weeks_, until I readjusted to the noise.

I pulled into the parking lot and found a vacant spot not too far from the school. Students were already milling about the grounds, searching out classmates that they hadn't kept in contact with over the summer to share their stories and gossip.

The thoughts of the new freshmen were generally that of intimidation and near-terror. The new senior class was mostly smug. They were generally thrilled with the idea of finally being at the top of the high school food-chain, and now having access to the 'Senior Parking Lot'. It seemed silly to me. It's not like the school was large enough to make parking difficult. The senior parking spots were closer to the actual building, but it wasn't like the general access lot was any less convenient.

I shrugged it off. What the hell did it even matter?

The school's layout seemed irrational to me. Instead of a single large building, where students could walk between their classes indoors through dry hallways, the classes were spread throughout several separate buildings with exterior entrances. How ridiculous was that in a city that had near-constant rain and mist? It was almost as stupid as those outdoor malls in towns that were covered in ice and snow half of the year.

The largest building contained the cafeteria, library, auditorium, gym, and the offices, along with a few various classrooms. At least this building had interior hallways, as well as the school's lockers. Then there was the building that had the science and math classes. The next one had English, social studies, government, economics and a few others. After that, it was the liberal arts building where the art classes, band room, and computer labs were located. This one with the classroom doors on the outside of the building, and coat hangers by each door to hold the students rain coats.

So. Stupid.

We had attended the school's new student orientation with the freshmen students the week before, and gotten our schedules and locker assignments then, so now all we really had to do was to go to our respective classrooms.

The course catalog for this tiny school had actually managed to surprise me a fair bit. The school actually offered several specialized versions of their required general education courses that were mildly interesting, and several elective and vocational classes that looked to be entertaining.

There was almost no chance of any of these classes actually offering us something _new_ to learn, but at least the shift in focus would make the class slightly less mind-numbing than high school courses tended to be.

There was an automotive class that Rosalie decided to enter. Obviously, it wouldn't teach her a damn thing she didn't already know, as car customization and rebuilding had been a love of hers for years, but it was a special 'vocational' class that actually lasted two class periods long, instead of the normal one. This meant two hours each day where she got to tinker under the hood of a car, instead of listening to some teacher drabble on about the world wars, or economics. The point of the class was obviously to prepare gear-heads who had no plans or opportunities to go to college, for a possible career path. I could only imagine the sausage fest that class would be – and all of them gawking over Rosalie.

Obviously Emmett signed up for it as well.

Alice actually squealed over one of the electives. This school actually had an 'Advanced Clothing: Textiles and Apparel' class. She immediately signed up.

For the science credit, as a senior, I had two choices; Physics or Human Anatomy and Physiology. I was surprised to see the physiology class at a high school. The course description even said it was an advanced lab course designed for students considering going into the medical field, or becoming a physical fitness trainer.

I'd aided my father for years, and since then, even gotten several medical degrees myself. I knew there was _nothing_ a high school anatomy class could teach me that I didn't already know, but I'd taken high school physics too many times to count.

The school was ridiculous enough to require students take a physical education class every year they were here, which was frustrating. Gym was always a nuisance for us, simply because of the effort involved in restraining our strength and speed. In addition to two general PE classes, the school offered Aerobics and Weight Training. Emmett actually opted to go for the Weight Training class, which seemed just silly to me. The girls both decided to go for the Aerobics class, and Jasper and I ended up in PE together.

I pulled my schedule out of my pocket in an unnecessary gesture to fit in, as I walked down the parking lot. Everyone was walking around with their schedules out, comparing and checking to see if they shared courses with any of their friends.

I already had the thing memorized. First period I had Economics. Second period I had Global Issues with Jasper. Third period was 12th grade World Literature, then Spanish II with Emmett in 4th period. After lunch I had Human Anatomy and then last period I had PE with Jasper. I didn't have any classes with the girls, but at least that meant I wouldn't have to sit next to any guys every day as they had dirty daydreams about my sisters.

It would kill Emmett to have my skill. He gets possessive enough just in response to the _looks_ that men shoot at Rosalie. Having to see and hear their imaginings would drive him insane.

I waved a parting goodbye to my siblings and silently said to Jasper that I'd see him in an hour and made my way to my Economics class. I was fairly early to class. I didn't see any point in going to my locker beforehand. Discarding my coat would be pointless since it would be expected to keep it for between classes when walking through the rain to the other buildings. The only other things I carried with me were my backpack, and the notebooks and folder within it.

So I entered the room, trying not to focus on the thoughts of the students around me as they gawked at me, and took a seat towards the back. I was bombarded with the mental images of myself from multiple perspectives, emphasizing just how many people were currently staring at me.

I preferred the back, just because it limits most people's abilities to look at me without being obvious, but at that moment, a lot of students were milling about the back of the classroom by the door. I sighed heavily. I hated this part. I wondered how long it would take for the student body to get over their infatuation with me and my family this time. We would only be in the school for a year, so it was honestly likely that they _wouldn't._

I closed my eyes and put my head down on the cool desk, taking in a deep breath and began sorting through the thoughts and images in my head for any suspicious thoughts.

It seemed that a fair number of students were already aware that some 'new kids' would be joining the student body. This knowledge seemed to stem from parents who knew about Carlisle starting his job at the hospital.

Already, images of my sibling's faces were floating through the minds of the students who had seen them in the parking lot and the hallways. The boys were already drooling over Rosalie and Alice, as well as being intimidated by Jasper and Emmett. Several were jealous of their looks, but many were just really scared by Emmett's massive size.

The girls were falling over themselves over Jazz and Emmett... and me. Oh yes. Lots of them were already going crazy and whispering to each other over me. Emmett was intimidating to both genders. He was huge and muscular. The girls found his face attractive, and when they got to see them, they often fell in love with his dimples, but his enormous size was enough to scare off even the horniest of high school girls.

Jazz always attracted lots of attention, but he had more trouble than the rest of us in controlling his bloodlust, so he had a tendency to scare off some people by looking at them as if they were food. He had a predator vibe that he just naturally exhumed around humans that served to ward them off, even if they weren't consciously aware of why.

I was graced with vampire good looks, but not nearly so much of the scary intimidating predator factor. _Which was actually rather annoying..._

It'd be much simpler if I scared them off as much as I attracted them. I wasn't interested in any of these banal teenagers. I _hated_ having to endure their fantasies about me. Watching them imagining themselves being seduced by a mental image of myself saying things and doing things to them that I would _never_ want to do. I _hated_ it.

That very thing was happening right at that moment. Several of the girls in the back of the classroom were imaging different scenarios in which they came up to me and sparked some conversation, only to have me lead them out of the room to some coat closet for a heated, and very unrealistic make-out session. Or imagining me coming up to them and trying to seduce them. Or the more innocent thoughts that just involved wishful imaginings of sparking a conversation, or walking down the hall hand-in-hand.

They weren't all offensive, of course, but I hated that the only reason that any of these people were attracted towards me at all was because of the way I looked. Would any of these people ever bother to try and get to know me? Would any of them have even remotely this level of interest if I wasn't unnaturally attractive?

Most likely, no.

A few minutes passed and I kept my head down on the desk. It wasn't cool anymore. My body heat had warmed up the surface of it, but it was still better than opening my eyes and looking around. One fewer sense to deal with at a time.

I heard a shuffling noise beside me and sensed the body heat and heartbeat of someone as they sat down. I didn't pay it any mind at first, but I suddenly became aware that the presence I felt beside me was absolutely... silent.

Curious I pulled my head up ever so slightly from my arm and turned my head to the right to look at the person. All I could see was a mop of brown hair and a head buried in a pair of crossed arms on the desk, in much the exact same position that I had been holding myself a moment earlier.

I focused on the figure and was once again dumbfounded by the mental silence of the girl beside me. There were no thoughts coming off her, no mental images, and no songs running through her head. Just nothing.

I focused harder and the roar of the surrounding voices intensified, but still there was nothing coming from this girl.

This was startling and confusing. I had _never_ encountered a silent mind before. Never.

Who was she?

I listened to the minds of our fellow students and quickly became aware of some rather venomous thoughts being aimed at the girl beside me.

Several girls in the back had been trying to build up the courage to take the seats around me and begin a conversation – they had planned on flanking me on all sides, one to each side and in front of me – but then this girl had walked into the room without so much as glancing around and gone straight to that chair and sat down.

From what I could see of their minds eyes, she had kept her head down and her eyes firmly on the floor the entire way; not so much as glancing my way before taking her seat.

These girls considered it a 'waste' for _Isabella_ to sit next to me as she would likely not even say a word the entire school year. Well, that seemed promising... sort of. Well, normally I would think so, at least. It'd be nice to sit next to someone who wasn't going to spend the whole year flirting and pestering me, but this girl was different. Her mind was totally silent to me and my mind was whirling with confusion and curiosity.

If nothing else, I knew I had to learn more about her in order to determine if this could pose a threat to us. I could always tell when someone was becoming suspicious of us, thanks to my ability. It was always an early warning system for us. It gave us the opportunity to either disprove their suspicions through our actions, or time to get away before they had a chance to spread their suspicions.

I was just about to try and introduce myself to the girl when a blond boy plopped himself down on the corner of my desk and grinned at me.

"Hey, I'm Mike Newton! You new here? I know everyone in this school, and I definitely don't know you."

I cocked an eyebrow at him and rolled my eyes. "Yes. New." I said in a flat clipped response.

"What's your name?" He asked, still enthusiastic.

I heaved a sigh and pushed myself up off the desk and leaned back in my chair to look at him. "Edward Cullen."

"Cool, so Eddie, do you pla–"

"_Edward. Not Eddie." _I interrupted him, irritated by the nickname.

"Uh... that's cool. So do you play any sports? Football or anything? The other new kids are your brothers and sisters, right? I saw the big one in the hall, and we could really use him on the team!"

I rolled my eyes. The sports teams always wanted us to join. Obviously we couldn't. "Sorry, not much of an organized sports man. Besides, isn't it too late to get on the football team? My understanding was that the tryouts happened a month ago, during the summer."

"Well, yeah, but believe me, Coach Clapp would make an exception for you or your brothers, if you were any good."

"Thanks, but no thanks."

"Man, that's too bad.

I could tell from his thoughts that their team was apparently lacking in the skill department. Not very surprising considering how small the school was. There were a few members on the team who he would prefer weren't on it. He didn't consider them good enough, and thought they were just bringing the rest of them down. His mental images of them showed two rather thin gangly looking fellows and one over weight boy who was clearly more pudge than muscle.

Newton's thoughts labeled them as 'losers' and 'geeks'. His thoughts irritated me and I wanted nothing more than for him to bugger off and leave me be. High school football competition irritated me on many levels, especially when it stopped being about kids having 'fun', and became all about attracting the attention of some college sports scout. I doubted any of these boys were good enough to attract any such attention anyways, but the goal still pushed them to ridicule anyone who they deemed unworthy.

"So anyway, you guys are welcome to sit with me and some of the guys from the team, at lunch." He continued, still hoping to talk us into joining the team.

"Thanks for the offer, but we'll probably just sit together as a family." I said as I began aimlessly digging into my backpack, in an attempt to find something to distract me from this boy.

"It's a big family, right?" He asked, and a memory of his mother talking with some other woman and a man about my family, while standing in what looked like an outdoors supply store.

"Yep." I responded shortly, choosing not to explain any further than that.

Suddenly, one of the girls who had been trying to up the courage to speak with me earlier walked over and leaned against the desk on the opposite side, blocking my view of the silent brunette beside me. She still remained silent with her head down on the desk, buried in her arms.

"Hey Mike, who's your friend?" The girl asked, looking at me.

"Hey Jessica, this is Edward. Edward, this is Jess." Mike said, motioning to the tall, shapely brunette beside me. Her hair was frizzy and she wore too much make-up. According to Mike's thoughts, she was the captain of the cheerleading team. He had memories of watching the cheerleaders practicing after the football team was through with their practice. His thoughts were filled with lewd memories of this girl in a tiny revealing pleated skirt.

"Hey Edward." The girl purred, smiling at me and leaning in to emphasize her bust size. I felt my stomach churn at her thoughts and it took every ounce of self-control I could muster not to outwardly grimace at her.

"I was just trying to talk Edward into trying out for the team." Mike said to Jessica.

Her eyes grew larger and in her thoughts, this idea thrilled her. She already had a bit of a crush on Mike, and since he was apparently the quarterback of the team, she thought it was her duty to rope him in for homecoming or prom, but she thought she'd much rather go to those events with me, and if I were on the team, it would only contribute to her 'ideal senior year'.

She had some sort of mental list of things she wanted to accomplish by the end of her high school career. One of those was to attend prom with the most attractive and desirable person in the school. She now had become determined that that individual would be me.

_Oh joy._ I mentally groaned.

"Oh, that'd be fantastic!" The girl gushed at me. "You should definitely tryout. We could really use more help on the team."

"Thanks, but no thanks. I was just telling Mike that I'm really not much of a team-sports kind of guy."

The two of them continued on for another few minutes when the teacher finally entered the room and they were finally forced to vacate my position and claim their own seats.

I sighed in relief, and let my eyes drift back to my right-hand side to the girl beside me. She was still leaning forward on her desk, with her arms stretched out and around her head, but now her chin was resting on her arms so she could look forward. My view of her was obstructed by a curtain of her hair that she let fall over the side of her face and I found myself rather frustrated by it.

I shook my head and refocused on the teacher at the head of the class. He was droning on about his plans for our class to partake in a 'stock market game' throughout the course of the semester. We would all be going to the computer lab down the hall each Monday and Friday. We'd each have accounts with some program, and a pre-determined budget to "buy" stocks with. We had to decide what to buy and sell and so on and so forth... I checked out at this point.

I let my mind wander to each of my sibling's classes and sifted through the minds of each of their classmates, searching for any signs of suspicion. Alice was in her textiles class and was flipping through visions of the next semester, checking to see what sort of class work she had to look forward to. She was giddy with excitement, thrilled that she actually got to do something she gave a crap about, while in a high school class.

I chuckled and projected my thoughts to her.

"_You seem excited."_

"_Oh, Edward! You bet I am! The last high school we got stuck in didn't have any classes like this. This is so much better than some stupid home EC class. It's actually about fashion! We get to design clothing! Design our own custom patterns, and make them. I get to be creative here!"_

"_Well, I'm thrilled you've got something to keep you entertained here that doesn't involve dragging Jazz into the janitor's closet."_

She giggled and drew the attention of the girl beside her.

"_Hey Alice," _I started, my thoughts drifting back to the girl beside me. _"There's a girl in my economics class who... who's thoughts I can't hear."_

Silence passed through her thoughts for a split second before they suddenly exploded with a thousand curious thoughts and scenarios.

"_Alice, Alice! Please, you know how much of a headache it gives me when you let your brain go that crazy. You vampires can think way too many things at once, and I'm currently in the middle of dealing with over 300 student's thoughts already bombarding my brain!"_

"_Sorry! Sorry, Edward! But... ohmygod, you're serious? You mean, you can't hear her thoughts at all!?"_

___"No, not at all. Alice... why the hell are you excited? From your thoughts I'd swear you think this is good news."_

"_Edward, please tell me that you are not seriously that dense." _

"_What?"_

"_What the hell have you been complaining to me about for the last four decades?"_

"_Hearing people's thoughts?"_

"_I mean about your problem with finding a mate!"_

I froze, shocked by her words. _"What!?"_

"_You always say you can't get a romantic connection with anyone because hearing their thoughts is too much of a distraction. Well...? You've found a girl whose thoughts you can't hear. Sounds like someone is handing you exactly what you need. Is she good looking?"_

"_Alice! She's human! And she's just a child!"_

"_Brother, dear – YOU are half human. Is she good looking?"_

"_Alice! I... I don't know... I haven't been able to get a good look at her."_

"_Well, _get_ a good look at her, and then let me know."_

"_Alice, this isn't even what I brought this up for. I was wondering if you could see her future. Since I can't hear her thoughts, I wondered if perhaps your power might be hindered as well."_

"_Well, is she sitting near you right now?"_

"_She's directly next to me, but I haven't interacted with her at all, so her future shouldn't be dependent at all on my actions right now, so my presence shouldn't hinder your visions."_

"_Directly next to you?"_ she confirmed.

"_Yes."_

I saw her mind begin to swim with images as she attempted to focus on visions of the girl beside me. Different faces floated in and out of her mind's eye and finally I saw the slouched form of the brown-haired girl beside me, and the blacked-out void in my seat.

"_That her?" _Alice asked.

"_Yes, that's her."_

"_Well, I can see her." _she said simply, with a mental shrug.

"_That you can... I'll have to see if Jasper can sense her emotions. Maybe he'll have a class with her and it'll give us a chance to check. Either that, or we can do it at lunch when they're both in the cafeteria."_

"_Worth a shot."_

"_Why do you think I'm not able to sense her?"_

"_Who knows? Maybe if she became a vampire, she'd be a shield."_

_"Does it work that way? You're suggesting that this human has a power, and it's already powerful enough to work against my ability?"_

_"Sure. Anything is possible."_

_"I've only ever heard of a physical shield though," _I said, thinking about one of the guard members that Eleazar told me he worked alongside during his time working with the Italian vampires, the Volturi.

She was described to me as the personal bodyguard to one of the Volturi leaders because of her ability to completely repel all physical attacks with her invisible psychic 'shield'.

_"Yes, but there are different types of shield powers. If that were the case with this girl, maybe she's a mental shield. ...or her brain is just broken. Maybe she has a tumor, or was dropped on her head as a baby. I don't know, Edward."_

_"Right, right. I get it."_

"_So have you checked her out yet? Is she pretty?"_

"_No, Alice, I have not. Nor am I going to 'check her out'. She's human. We've already discussed this subject Alice."_

"_Oh come on! Humor me! Is she pretty?"_

"_Alice, she has her hair covering the whole side of her head facing me and the rest of it is buried in her hands. I cannot even see the girl."_

She huffed and sighed loudly, drawing the attention of the girl sitting beside her again. _"Fine, whatever. But try to get a look before class is over."_

I just rolled my eyes and didn't bother to send her any sort of response.

The class finally came to an end, and the students began packing up their book bags and shuffling towards the exit. I paused, waiting to watch the girl, not because of what Alice said, but just because I was honestly extremely curious and bewildered by this creature who somehow possessed the ability to block me. I wondered suddenly if she could block me both ways. Obviously I couldn't hear her thoughts, but I wondered if her shield kept me from projecting my thoughts into her mind as well.

I had no idea how I could possibly test this question, though. I had used my skill in the past to trick people into thinking that my voice was their own. It always scared and confused them, but I knew I could mask my projected mental voice to sound as if it were their own. The problem was, had no idea what her mental voice sounded like, since I couldn't hear it.

Since I couldn't hear her mind, I would have no easy way to tell if she had heard my projected thought. At best, I would have to hope for some outward reaction, but the whole thing was terribly risky, and I knew I couldn't do it right now. I'd have to plan out a better way to test it.

She had just stood up from her desk, her back facing me and her head ducked down low. I was about to speak to her, maybe introduce myself or something, when Mike was suddenly in my face again. I quietly groaned and rolled my eyes.

_Was this going to become a regular thing?_

How long would it take for this kid to take a hint? He asked me what my next class was, and I told him it was Global Issues. He was instantly disappointed, thinking about how his next class was US History. I was instantly relieved... for about ten seconds, at which point Jessica appeared with a huge grin, informing me that _she_ had Global Issues next and offering to show me the way.

If it weren't for the fact that Esme raised me to be polite and a gentleman, I would stop pussyfooting around and just tell these two to get lost. Already several of the students had associated me with the popular clique of kids, since I had been so readily accepted by two of the most popular preps in the school.

_Great..._

On the walk to Global Issues, Jessica was joined by three girls, all of whom insisted on an introduction. One was named Lauren, one Sarah, and one Tiffany. If it weren't for my near-perfect memory, I would have promptly forgotten all of their names out of utter disinterest. Apparently, the three girls were fellow cheerleaders, who were all equally enthusiastic in their attempts to convince me to get my brothers and all try out for the team. Why the hell are all small town high schools so damned obsessed with their football teams?

_At least we weren't in the mid-west or the south... it's so much more insane there._

Sarah and Tiffany thought my clipped answers were a sign that I really wasn't interested, and were actually perceptive enough to realize I was annoyed with the attention. Lauren was too busy ogling my body and trying to imagine what I looked like with my shirt off to even hear a word I'd said, and Jessica just took my attitude as a sign that she needed to be determined and maintain her persistence.

_Well isn't that just great... lovely._ I thought sarcastically.

Fortunately the other girls did _not_ have Global Issues and had to part ways with us when we exited the building. Jessica tried to walk extra close to me and smiled around at the watching students. She was soaking up the attention, and several of the students were already assuming that I would be dating her by the end of the week.

_I_ wanted to wretch.

We got to the room and I saw that it was quickly filling up but there were still a few available seats that were directly next to each other. Jessica was planning on getting me to sit directly next to her. Next to her for the _entire semester_.

_Oh, hell no!_

There was no way I was spending the next semester directly next to this girl. I quickly thanked her for showing me the way to the class and told her I needed to make a stop off at the restroom. She was about to say that she'd save me a seat, but I bolted before she could get the words out. As long as I hadn't heard it, it wouldn't be overtly rude of me to sit somewhere else, once I was back.

I went into the bathroom and leaned over the sink heaving a sigh. My head was _pounding_. The noises bombarding me from all imaginable angles were becoming unbearable, and it was only the start of second period.

I turned on the faucet and ran the water for a minute until I was sure that it was a cold as it could get and splashed some on my face. _God, I hated being around so many people._

I thought back to the strange silent girl. What _would_ it be like to be in the company of someone, but still enjoy the silence of just my own mind? The only way I had ever been able to be alone in my own thoughts was when I traveled far enough into the wilderness that no other people were within my range of hearing... which was unfortunately quite a distance.

If it was a vampire, or any of my family members I could hear them as far as two or three miles away. Human's mental voices, fortunately, faded away after about a mile, but a mile is still a damn long distance. The more densely populated that mile is, the more my head aches from the riotous noise.

Everywhere that we had ever lived, I'd found some place, far enough from home and all local human dwellings, that I could go there and relax. My mind, my own. No other voices. No other images. Just me.

What would it be like to go to one of these places; feel that mental peace; but not have to actually be alone?

I imagine it would be nice.

A thought occurred to me then. I knew that trying to find a mate out of the human populace was a bad idea, but that certainly didn't mean I couldn't still befriend this girl. Or at least speak to her and see if I could stand being in her presence. She had to be better than _Jessica_.

I dried off my face, took in a deep long breath trying to center myself and push aside the racket in my head, and left the restroom to head to the classroom.


	3. Chapter 3

I entered the room just as the bell rang and glanced around at the available desks. There were only three. One of them was beside Jessica. Clearly, she had still 'saved' it for me. I was relieved that there was still an alternative option available. I made my way over to the _other_ empty chair and took my seat, not looking at Jessica.

I heard her annoyed and disappointed thoughts at me having opted not to sit beside her. The seat I took was actually closer to the door and she assumed that I only sat there out of quick convenience, and not because I was avoiding her.

I knew I was going to have to start making some more obvious rejections soon, or this stubborn girl would never get the picture.

I leaned back in my seat, letting my bag fall beside my desk and I shoved it underneath with my foot. I quickly glanced around the room to look for Jasper but he wasn't here yet. I did a quick mental scan to figure out where he was and why he wasn't in the class. I caught sight of him and quickly diverted my attention to other things.

_Dear lord, can they seriously not go for one single school day without attacking each other in a broom closet?!_

I knew the reason for it. I couldn't completely blame Jazz or Alice for it. There were a _**lot**_ of hormones flying around this school right now. Horny teenagers left and right, and Jazz in the middle, soaking up every bit of it.

Just like it would take me some time to readjust to the mental onslaught of their thoughts, it would take Jasper time to readjust to the constant bombardment of teenaged hormones.

I returned my attention to the classroom I was in, hoping for anything to distract me from what my siblings were doing, just down the hall, when I finally realized who was beside me on my left. It was the same silent, brown-haired girl.

_Chance!_ Jasper would be in this class, so I could ask him if he was able to sense her emotions... that is of course, assuming that he doesn't skip the class entirely, and I was _not_ about to go tip-toeing back through his thoughts to check and see if he intended to actually attend.

The teacher was already speaking to the class; passing out the syllabus and preparing a stack of books. I glanced over at the girl and was once again frustrated by her curtain of hair. This time she was more upright, but had her head rested on her hand, propped up on her desk by her elbow. Despite this, she still had the whole side of her face blanketed behind her hair. It was like the girl was always hiding from the world, always avoiding attention.

I tried sifting through the thoughts of the other students to see if anyone was by chance thinking some bit of information about her that I could use as a clue, but there was nothing. No one was thinking about her. No one seemed to even notice she was there.

Another minute passed and the teacher had us filling out little note cards with the serial number of our book, so that if any ended up missing at the end of the year, the school would know who to charge for the book, when Jasper finally walked in. He still looked a bit miserable from the emotional onslaught, but he had a lighter bounce in his step and a small grin reached the corner of his mouth.

The teacher glared at him and proceeded to say he'd make an exception for today, since it was the first day of class, but that tardiness would not be tolerated from here on out. Jasper nodded and took the seat beside Jessica. I cringed and wished I'd managed to warn him in time for him to choose the other one that had still been free.

Jasper's presence beside her, seemed to lighten her mood; apparently making up for my having opted to sit somewhere else. She suddenly decided that if I proved to be too stubborn, that Jasper would be more than decent as an alternative prom date goal.

Part of me was looking forward to the moment she would realize that he was taken**, **while another part of me dreaded it, because it would mean that she, and every other girl in the damn school, would see _me_ as the only 'available' member of the Cullens, and the obsession would become even more targeted.

"_Jasper."_ I said, silently into his mind. His head jerked, infinitesimally, at the shock that they always experienced when I first speak into their minds, but the movement was not significant enough that anyone else would have actually noticed it.

"_What's up, Edward?"_

"_There's a girl here beside me – the brunette to my left. Can you sense her emotions?"_

His mind was a swirl of curious and confused thoughts, and he glanced at me curiously before shifting his gaze to the girl beside me.

"_Yeah, I can sense them just fine. Why?"_

Damn... well, there goes that. Why the hell can't _I_ hear her then?

"_I... I can't hear her thoughts for some reason."_

His eyes widened with surprise, but he didn't form any of his remarks into words. Jasper's thoughts were often the hardest for me to decipher since he tended to think so much in emotions.

I wondered for a moment why Alice hadn't mentioned this to him when they were in the broom closet, but I quickly realized that they probably didn't devote a lot of that time to making idle chit-chat.

"_So what do you suppose the deal is?"_ He thought back at me after a moment.

I shrugged and he could see the gesture from the corner of his eye.

We refocused our attention to the front of the class and pretended to pay attention to the teacher. I stole glances over at the girl beside me every few minutes, but she was still defeating my attempts to get a good look at her.

Class was winding down with about fifteen minutes left to go, since the teacher didn't have a full enough plan for the first day to keep the class occupied the entire hour. Jessica was debating between coming over to speak to me again, or making nice with my brother. She settled on the hope that he and I would speak and she could join us both. I was determined to speak with the girl beside me before Jessica or any other student had the opportunity to interrupt me this time.

The teacher finally released us to some 'free' time, but with the recommendation of using the remaining time to start reading the first chapter that was assigned.

The girl beside me flipped open her book, and thumbed through the pages to the correct page. She was the _only_ student in the whole class who actually seemed intent on using this time to read the damn class book. Everyone else was turning to their neighbors, or getting out of their seats to walk over and talk with friends. Jessica was turning to Jasper, but he turned away, to the other side of his desk to begin digging through his bag. He could feel the lust and anxious excitement pouring off her, and knew she was about to approach him.

He quickly pulled out his iPod and put in some ear buds. The international signal for 'I'm not listening, don't bother me', and pulled out a copy of 'City of God' and quickly buried his nose in it.

_Why didn't I try that...?_

Jessica was put out, but quickly decided to refocus her attention on me.

_Shit!_

I turned to the girl beside me and cleared my throat.

No response.

I did it again. Jessica was out of her seat.

Girl still made no response.

"Uh, hello?" I said, looking straight at her.

Nothing. Was she deaf?

Jessica was only two rows away. _Oh dear lord, please do not let me be left keeping company with that wretched girl for the next fifteen minutes._

"Hi, I'm Edward," I said again, a little louder. Slowly, her head rose from the textbook and turned towards me, the curtain of hair slowly falling back towards her neck and revealing to me a beautiful pair of chocolate eyes. My breath caught in my throat suddenly as I finally got a good look at her. She had a beautiful, heart-shaped face and plump red pouty lips. She had these huge doe-shaped eyes that seemed so deep I felt like I could slip into them and fall forever. As I gawked at her I realized that those eyes were wide and filled with confusion.

"Are you... speaking to me?" She asked, shock and disbelief lacing her tone.

I grinned weakly, collecting myself and shoving my bewildering thoughts aside. "Uh... yes?"

"Oh..." She still stared at me, bewildered. Jessica made it over to my desk.

"Hey Edward!"

I groaned.

"So what's your name?" I asked the girl beside me, opting not to respond to Jessica in hopes that she might just vanish.

"Me?" The girl squeaked, still shocked, as she looked between me and Jessica.

I chuckled lightly. "Yes, _you._"

"Uhm... I'm Bella." Her eyes darted back to Jessica, as if she was afraid that the peppy cheerleader would bite her head off for speaking to me.

From what I saw of Jessica's thoughts, she would have, if she could. She was glaring daggers at Bella and wondering why I was 'wasting my time' speaking to her.

Now it was my turn to glare daggers at Jessica. Her venomous thoughts towards the poor, silent girl beside me were disgusting and infuriated me for some reason. This _Jessica_ girl was a predator among her kind. She fed off of those who she deemed lower than herself and snubbed her nose at everyone else.

Jessica looked back at me and was caught off guard by my glare. I may not be nearly as intimidating as my full-blood vampire kin on a day to day basis, but if I put some effort into it, I was more than capable of looking pretty damn scary.

"Uhh... so... Edward," Jessica said, faltering in her words as she tried to regroup from my death glare. "What's your next class?" she continued, trying to lighten her tone and regain conversation.

I heaved a heavy sigh.

"Classic Literature." I responded flatly, looking away from Jessica and back at Bella. Her bright eyes lit up for a fraction of a second, but she quickly looked away. I cocked an eyebrow, curious by the reaction, and suddenly frustrated by the silence of her mind that hid the reason behind it away from my grasp.

"Oh... too bad." Jessica said, realizing that we didn't share the next class. "I hear that one's a real bore."

"I'm actually looking forward to it," I said, not breaking my gaze with Bella's, and as such, completely ignoring Jessica's. This was really starting to frustrate her. "Bella, what's your next class?" I asked, giving her a soft smile.

She jerked slightly, apparently shocked that I was still speaking with her.

"Uh, Classic Literature." She said, blushing. _Why was she blushing?_

I coughed a light laugh. "Seriously?" I asked, a grin spreading across my face for some reason.

She looked at me confused for a moment before nodding. "Yeah?" She responded, but it came out as a question instead.

"So we've got the first three classes together?" I said, excited by this prospect for some reason.

"Oh... I guess so," she said in a timid voice.

Jessica was fuming now, deciding that at lunch she would 'set me straight' about certain social orders that existed in this school, so that I wouldn't continue to make the blunder of speaking with this girl.

Honestly – could this girl be any more of a bitch? She was shaping up to be the epitome of the popular, evil, bitchy, cheerleader. Could this girl possibly be any more of a stereotype?

"What do you have after that?" I asked Bella, wondering how much further our coincidingschedules could last.

"Aerobics." She responded in the same small tone as before. Her eyes darted cautiously over to Jessica again, but then back to mine.

"Ah, well, guess that's where it ends. I have Spanish II during 4th period."

"Oh... okay." She really did seem rather socially awkward. She clearly possessed almost no self-confidence at all, but I can imagine years of being tormented by your fellow students can do that to a person. Somehow I felt the desire to help bring out her confidence. She was so beautiful; I wanted to help her realize that.

"I think my sister is in that class though. I remember her saying she had aerobics right before lunch." I continued, wanting to keep the conversation going.

"That's nice... what's her name?"

"Alice. She's short with black spiky hair. I'm sure you won't be able to miss her." I chuckled and paused for a moment. "So why aerobics and not just standard gym?" It was a stupid question but I wasn't accustomed to making small talk with humans and was reaching for subject matter.

"It's just safer that way; fewer opportunities for me to interact and injure others," she mumbled, looking down at her desk and blushing.

Jessica was scowling at Bella now and I saw a memory flash through her mind of the two of them in a gym class together where Bella lost grip on a tennis racket, sending it flying across the gym and beaming Jessica straight in the face. It was an angry, bitter memory. Apparently it left a large bruise across her eye and cheek and that night there was a game and a dance the day after.

"Injure others?" I asked anyway.

"I'm... rather _clumsy_. It's so bad it's practically to the point where I could be deemed disabled. Me and sports make bad bed fellows."

"I'm sure it's not that bad."

"Oh it is. Believe me."

I paused for a moment, trying to think up something more to say when suddenly the bell rang. Bella began collecting the items from her desk, and stuffed them into her bag. She stood and began to leave. I quickly packed away my items and hurried after her, leaving a stunned and confused Jessica standing next to my desk.

"So perhaps you can show me the way to the classic literature class?" I asked as I caught stride with Bella, walking beside her.

She looked at me, startled, as if the fact that I was still speaking to her was the most confusing thing in the world.

"Oh, sure. It's in this building; it's just down the hall."

"Nice to know I have at least one transition between classes where I don't have to go outside and get wet," I mused.

She chuckled and nodded. I grinned widely, knowing I'd finally gotten a positive response out of her.

"It really is a ridiculous layout for a school in a town that rains so much," I continued.

"I know!" She said, turning her head to look at me as we continued to walk forward through the crowd of students. "I thought the same thing when I first came here two years ago. Who thought it was a good idea to have exterior access to half the classes when it rains so much here?"

I grinned at her. She seemed a lot more comfortable now that Jessica was gone, and I was thrilled that I was finally getting a little more enthusiasm out of her. "Where'd you come here from?" I asked, finally sensing an opportunity to learn something about her.

"Phoenix. I moved here in my sophomore year to live with my dad, Charlie."

"Oh that had to be quite an adjustment. Moving from Arizona to Washington?"

"No kidding," she grumbled. "So where did you come here from?"

"Alaska."

Her eyes widened and she gawked at me.

"Geez... what's it like there?"

"Snowy," I said shrugging and grinning.

She grinned and rolled her eyes.

"Honestly I really prefer sunny places, but my family rarely moves to anywhere warm. It's actually rather depressing," I mumbled the last part.

"You move around a lot?" She asked.

"Yes. We've lived all over the country. Outside it as well. Canada mostly but we've also traveled to Europe and South America."

"Wow... boy, I'd love to get to travel like that..." she said, a soft smile crossing her face as her eyes unfocused and she looked down the hallway at nothing. "Have you ever lived in the south at all?"

"My family hasn't really... well, my brother Jasper is actually from Texas, so I guess he has. But I spent some time in South America one summer as a part of an exchange program. I've got a good friend who lives in Peru and I've stayed with him and his aunt a few times."

Her eyes widened. "Oh wow. That had to be interesting..." she said. Her face looked thoughtful for a second and I couldn't help the curiosity boiling inside me as I wondered what was on her mind.

"What are you thinking?" I asked finally, my curiosity getting the better of me.

"Oh... I was just wondering what you meant about your brother being from Texas."

"We're all adopted," I said easily.

"Oh! I didn't realize."

"It's alright," I said shrugging.

She came to a stop in front of an open doorway and waved her hand at it awkwardly. "Well, this is it."

I motioned for her to enter first and she did. She looked around the classroom for a moment before walking over and taking a seat in the center of the second to last row. I sat beside her, turning to face her in hopes of continuing our conversation.

"So what brought _you_ to move to Forks?" I asked.

"My mom remarried, so I moved in with my dad." she said simply. "How about you? Why did you get dragged to this place?"

"My mother likes small towns. My father, Carlisle, is a doctor. He got a job at the local hospital as the head of surgery, so we moved here."

She nodded. "So you've got a sister named Alice and a brother named Jasper? And you're all adopted?"

"And another sister named Rosalie, and another brother named Emmett." I said, grinning, happy that she seemed interested enough in me to try and remember these details.

"Wow, that's a big family."

I shrugged. "Esme loves having us. She's a naturally mothering person."

"That's really amazing of them... adopting so many kids. How old were you when you were adopted?"

"I was the first, they've had me almost my whole life, so they're the only parents I've ever known. Carlisle is actually my uncle. My parents died when I was really young and he and Esme were my god parents." I hated lying about my parentage, but no one would ever believe that Esme and Carlisle were old enough to be my biological parents. "All of the others were adopted when they were older. Jasper and Rosalie are twins and they're actually Esme's foster kids. She's their aunt and their parents died in a car crash just a few years ago."

"Oh, wow. That's insane. That's so kind of your parents to take you all in like that."

I smiled and nodded.

I hesitated, but decided to tell her upfront so she wouldn't hear it through the grapevine later on. "I'm sure this is going to get around rather quickly, but my siblings are actually sort of _involved_ with each other."

"Involved?"

"Like I said, Jasper and Rosalie are Esme's foster kids, they actually haven't been with us very long. When they joined the family Emmett fell in love with Rose, and Alice with Jasper. So they're... dating."

Her eyes were wide and I tried to smile reassuringly. This subject was always a bit awkward to broach with people.

"Wow... what do your parents think of that?"

"They're happy for them," I said, shrugging, trying to play off how odd it would seem to anyone outside of our family.

"Well that's open of them. I can imagine some parents would be uncomfortable with that... especially since you all live under the same roof."

I nodded. "Well, they're happy and that's all that really matters to Carlisle and Esme."

She smiled softly.

The bell rang and Bella shifted in her seat so she was facing the front of the classroom and focused on the teacher as he began gathering a pile of papers that I assumed would be the syllabus.

I didn't have much of an opportunity to speak with Bella throughout the rest of the class, but couldn't help but look over and observe her from time to time. She wasn't slouching nearly as much now as she had in the previous two classes, and as she read over the list of books that we'd be reading for the class her face lit up and she smiled.

She listened intently to the teacher and seemed more enthusiastic about this course then I would ever expect from a high school student. I garnered from her response that she was probably an avid reader and tucked the information away for future discussion matter.

When the class was over I smiled and said goodbye to her. We were going opposite directions and I couldn't come up with a valid excuse to walk with her to her Aerobics class, so instead I made my way to Spanish to meet up with Emmett.

Spanish was entirely uneventful. Emmett and I sat next to each other in the last row and spent a significant portion of the class in silent communication, via my telepathy. I didn't bother to mention Bella to him, since I wasn't sure yet what there was to mention. During the lulls in our conversation I let my mind wander to the aerobics classroom.

Alice had taken the initiative to introduce herself to Bella and was making small talk whenever opportunities presented themselves.

Classes finally drew to an end and Emmett and I made our way to the cafeteria, being joined mid-way by Jasper and Rosalie, and then were met at the entrance by Alice.

We went and joined the line for food, with me at the lead. I scanned the options and picked out the few items I was actually willing to eat, silently telling my siblings what to purchase. We finished up and made our way to a large circular table on the far end of the cafeteria that was still empty.

Every one of my siblings had an apple on their tray, and I reached over and grabbed the apple off of Alice's and bit into it.

"Man, those things are your crack," Emmett joked, eying the apple.

I was finished with Alice's apple in a matter of seconds and put it back on her tray before reaching over and grabbing the one off of Emmett's tray.

"What? They're good," I said shrugging and starting on the second apple.

"That's so weird... I mean, you can't even stand most human foods, but you plow through apples like they're candy to you." Emmett continued, watching me eat with a look of disgust on his face. "What do they taste like again?"

"Emmett, I could never adequately describe it to you. Honestly, it has more to do with the smell."

"Isn't the texture freaky?"

"Not as bad as most food," I shrugged. "Why are we having this discussion again? I swear, every time we do the school thing and I get stuck eating your lunches for you, we have this conversation. Isn't it old for you yet?"

"I'm just curious," Emmett defended shrugging. I rolled my eyes and put the apple remains back on Emmett's tray and stood up reaching across and grabbing the apple off Jasper's tray.

"Any chance you'll clear off any of this other crap?" Jazz asked, eying the slice of pizza on his tray.

I grimaced. "Pizza? Yuck, no way. Why'd you even grab that? There is no way I'm touching your greasy slab of cardboard."

Jasper bent slightly closer to his plate and sniffed, scrunching up his nose in disgust. "It smells horrid."

"Tastes horrid too," I said, mimicking his disgusted expression. "If you hold it up, I can almost guarantee that the grease will literally drip off it."

Once I finished Jasper's apple I eyed their trays and heaved a sigh. The apples were the only things I could slightly enjoy. The rest of it was a chore. I grabbed the salad off Rosalie's tray and picked through it. I ate the baby tomatoes and the cucumbers without any fuss, but the lettuce was wretched. I had the salad slimmed down before I handed it back to her. At least it would look like there was something on her tray that was eaten.

While I picked from their trays forcing myself to eat, and they poked at their food pretending to eat, Alice went into an enthusiastic description of her textiles class, telling Rosalie it wasn't too late for her to rework her schedule if she was interested in taking it.

Rose scrunched up her face and informed Alice that she had no desire to partake in any class that required her to sew.

"I was forced to take home economics courses in every damn high school we've ever attended thanks to the ignorant conception that all women must be required to know how to cook and sew. Now that we've moved beyond the dark ages of sexism and it's no longer mandated, I have no intention of ever again taking one of those courses." Rosalie sneered, looking down at what remained of her salad after my efforts and then glances up at me.

"Not like the salad?" She smirked at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Next time don't put any of that nasty salad dressing on it, and I might eat a bit more."

"Rosalie, you've got it all wrong!" Alice said, "This is _so _not a home ec class. It's a _fashion design_ class! It's like an art class! We'll be designing our own clothing and learning to make the patterns and sewing it together. Obviously, I already know how to do that, but I still get to have fun with clothing."

Rosalie rolled her eyes now. "Alice, clothes are _your_ thing, not mine."

Alice sighed and shrugged. "Suit yourself."

I tuned out of their conversation and turned my attention back to the students surrounding us in the cafeteria. My head was absolutely throbbing from the constant mental bombardment I had been experiencing all morning. I wanted nothing more than to try and ignore it all, but it was our first day, and it was lunch when the student body would come together and share their gossip. It was important that I pay extra attention during this time for the rest of the week at least.

I jumped from the minds of one table to the next seeing if anyone was discussing my family. Quite a few of them were, but they still had almost no information on any of us, so their gossip was sparse and purely speculative. A few of the gear-heads in Rose and Emmett's automotives class were suspicious that they were either an item, or Emmett was a very protective brother, but none of them were much for gossip so they were currently keeping their ponderings to themselves..

"Oh Edward," Alice began and I turned to look at her, returning my attention to my siblings. "I met Bella in my aerobics class." She smirked at me and continued silently, _"She mentioned you two talked. She's very pretty."_

"Who's Bella?" Emmett asked looking between the two of us.

"A girl in a few of Edward's classes."

Emmett looked confused. "Uh... so? There are a lot of girls in Edward's classes."

"Yeah, but Edward can't hear _this_ girl's thoughts," Alice said grinning widely.

Emmett's eyes grew wide and Rosalie's head popped up, suddenly interested in our conversation.

"You can't hear her?" Rose asked, stunned.

I sighed and shrugged. "Nope. Not a thing. Her mind is totally silent to me."

"That ever happen before?" Emmett asked, even though he was already pretty sure that it hadn't.

"No, never."

"Why do you think you can't hear her?" Rose asked her thoughts weary and concerned that this could pose a risk if Bella was to become suspicious since I wouldn't be able to tell.

"No idea. Alice and I pondered it a bit, but really, there's no way to say for sure. Alice suggested she might be a mental shield, but it seems odd to me that a human would have a power like that and be able to block me," I answered.

"Well, what other possible reasons could there be?" Rose asked.

Alice shrugged. "Maybe she got dropped on her head as a baby?"

I chuckled and rolled my eyes.

"Do you think this could be a problem?" Rose continued.

"Eh, I'm not worried about it," I said, shrugging off her concerns.

"She's really shy," Alice said. "Seems to keep to herself."

"Yeah, from what I can tell, she's very introverted. Even if she somehow suspected something, I'm not sure she even has anyone that she'd have to tell her concerns to." A small pang of sadness hit me as I said these words, and I suddenly wondered if she had any friends in the school. The thoughts of the girls in our first period and of Jessica suggested otherwise.

My siblings continued to discuss things but I let my mind drift away, scanning the lunch room to locate Bella and see who she was sitting with.

Five whole minutes of searching passed before I finally conceded that she wasn't here.

"Hey," I said, breaking into my sibling's conversation. They turned their attention to me and waited for me to continue. "Doesn't this school have a closed campus policy for lunch?" I asked, looking at them.

Emmett and Rose both looked irritated as they all confirmed it. 

"Yes. No one is allowed to leave school for lunch," Rose said. "Why?"

"Bella isn't in the lunch room," I said.

"You sure? You can't hear her." Jasper asked.

"Positive. I've searched for the last five minutes."

"Well, lunch is over in about fifteen minutes; maybe she already went to her next class." Jasper shrugged.

"Hmm..." I responded noncommittally.

After a few more minutes had passed we all decided to disperse and make our ways to our individual classes. I made my way to the science building for my Anatomy and Physiology class. I entered and took a quick survey of the classroom. This was a lab course and instead of individual desks the room was filled with black topped tables that sat two people each.

The room was still deserted and I made my way towards the rear of the classroom and took a seat there. The entrance to this classroom was at the front, so from where I was sitting I could see each person that came in. I intended to spend the start of the class glaring daggers at everyone that entered the room in hopes of keeping my table to myself and avoid the annoyance of a lab partner.

A few minutes passed and, so far, my efforts had been very successful. The room was quickly filling with students and I still sat alone at my table in the back. With five minutes left to go before the bell rang, Bella walked into the room and glanced around the class. She grimaced as she looked around at available seats before she noticed me sitting towards the back. We made eye contact and I smiled at her, reassuringly. Her eyes widened and she hesitated for a second before ducking her head, looking back at me through her eye lashes and grinning shyly. I chuckled and smiled wider. I darted my eyes to the empty seat beside me and then nodded my head at it while looking at her.

She looked stunned but only hesitated for a moment before cautiously making her way over and taking the seat next to me.

"Hi." I said, once she was situated.

"Hi." She replied, smiling softly at me.

"So this makes it four." I said chuckling and she looked at me, confused.

"Four?"

"Four classes where I get to sit next to you." I grinned and she blushed.

She ducked her head down, but looked up at me out of the corner of her eye and I saw the corner of her mouth curve up slightly.

"So..." I faltered, reaching for a subject matter to bring up. "Do you have an interest in medicine or something?"

"Hmm? No..." she looked confused by my question.

"Then why take this class? It seems like most people would take the physics class since the class description listed this as an advanced level course."

"Easy. It's because I _hate_ math." she said simply, as if that explained everything. "I finished my math requirements for high school last year with Trig, so this year I don't have to take a math class if I don't want to... which I _don't._"

"But physics isn't a math class." I pointed out.

"_True_, but it's a science class that requires a lot of math; a lot of _brain-frying-complicated_ math that I don't have the mental endurance to suffer through this year. I figured I'd have an easier time learning about bones and organs then dealing with complex physics."

I chuckled. "I see. I can understand that."

"So do _you_ have an interest in medicine?" She asked, throwing my question back at me.

"My father _is_ a doctor." I replied, matter-of-factly.

"Do _you_ want to be a doctor?"

"I might consider it... I'm interested in medicine, but I'm not nearly as passionate about it as my father is."

She hesitated and started chewing on her lower lip. "What... what _are_ you passionate about then?" She asked. Her voice was quiet and hesitant as if she wasn't sure she had the right to ask that question.

I smiled. I wasn't quite sure why, but I really liked that she wanted to know this. That she wanted to get to know _me_. Most people didn't bother trying to get to know the real me at all.

"Music. Playing _and_ composing."

"You write music?"

I nodded. "Yes. Other than that, I spend a lot of time reading."

Her eyes lit up and she smiled. "Really? Like what?"

"Classics mostly. Dickens, Hawthorne, Twain, Lewis Caroll, Jules Verne. And philosophy... Nietzsche, Camus, Kierkegaard."

"Seriously?! I don't think I've ever even met someone in high school who even knew who Nietzsche was, let alone having actually read him."

"You've read Nietzsche?" I asked, just as surprised as she was. "Ever read any Satre?"

"Yes! His writing is fascinating. Do you read a lot of existentialist philosophy?"

I chuckled, absolutely in awe of this odd girl and nodded. How many 17 year olds even knew the _meaning_ of the world 'existentialism'? "I went through a pretty deep philosophical phase a number of years ago. Ever read Simone de Beauvoir?"

"Oh my god! Yes! I loved her book the Second Sex, but I hate that there aren't any good English translations of it. I would have taken French if this stupid school actually offered it, just so I could read her original writings."

"Her ideas were way ahead of her time. The original writings are definitely far superior to the English translations."

"Have you read them?"

"Yup."

"You speak French?" She asked, disbelievingly.

I shrugged sheepishly and nodded. "Fluently."

"And they're still making you take Spanish, here?"

I laughed and rolled my eyes. "Yes." I drew the words out in an exasperated exhale. "I speak Spanish fluently too, which makes it that much more ridiculous."

Her eyes were huge now. "Are you serious? You're fluent in three languages?"

I shrugged; trying to act like it wasn't a big deal at all. I wasn't about to tell her how many languages I was _really_ fluent in. She'd never believe it.

"Maybe you can help me in my Spanish class then. I suck at Spanish."

"You're taking Spanish?"

"Yeah, I have it next period."

"I can help you out with it whenever you want," I said, smiling. "We could even try reading Cervantes together, if you'd like."

"Don Quixote?!" She exclaimed.

I nodded. "I have one of the original Spanish first editions at home."

Her jaw dropped and she gaped at me.

"You are _not_ serious! You have a first edition of _Don Quixote!?_"

Our conversation continued fluidly like this for several more minutes. The teacher took the first five minutes of class to prepare things before he called the class to order and we had to reluctantly stop conversing.

I was truly surprised how easily she and I were able to talk. I so rarely found anyone born within the last several decades who I shared any interests with. Jasper and I were both avid readers; he and father were about the only people I had ever been able to have intellectual discussions with about literature.

However, I was never able to have any decent existentialist talks with either of them. Jasper found Satre offensive, and while my father was open minded enough to debate religion with me, we didn't quite see eye to eye on certain aspects of philosophy.

But in the brief time I had to chat with Bella it already seemed that we shared many of the same taste in literature and philosophy. The fact that she was only 17 or 18 years old and had actually studied any philosophy at all, let alone Nietzsche and Sartre, was stunning and I found myself anxiously awaiting another opportunity to speak with her.

Unfortunately I wasn't given any such opportunity that day. The teacher kept talking right up to the bell, and too soon, Bella and I had to part ways. I reluctantly bid her farewell and made my way to gym.


End file.
